


he rescues the crushed in spirit

by tnevmucric



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Open to Interpretation, POV Second Person, Post-Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 16:14:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16936494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tnevmucric/pseuds/tnevmucric
Summary: conscience is no more than the dead speaking to us





	he rescues the crushed in spirit

A lifetime has passed and your body is an untouchable smear between skies; glued to your mattress, you notice that daylight has stained your walls and the collection of cups beside your bed now clutters your walking space.

Days have passed.

You want to convince yourself of your options and of fate's unreliable choices. You feel you have two ideas left and that neither have continuing paths which will amount to something. In your ending, time will pass and years will move quickly.

You are unconvinced.

Recently (yet more familiarly than you'll let on) something continues to stand over you. It doesn't loom, doesn't speak, but you'll notice it's fingertips on the back of your chair or feel the chill of it at your shoulder. _Really?_ , you can imagine it saying, _are you trying to break your heart?_

You have given away so much of yourself, and that has allowed people to find who they are: but you are nothing now. You are a shell. Late at night, you may murmur to your body _I thought you might miss me after all these years_ but your body doesn't care.

You wanted to know them, wanted to see them safe, you wanted this story to have a happy ending, so you saw it reason enough to make yourself a stranger in your own body.

You have disassociated yourself.

You think you see the engine room when you close your eyes. You think you saw him as he really was- but maybe you didn't, because you associated him with every heart you changed and every friend you made. If you had never met him, if your stories had never entwined until that point, you would have seen him suddenly alone and you would have been frightened. Point blank.

Maybe he'd laugh.

These thoughts drive you mad.

For months you witness his death in an untimely slow-motion. His blood paints your walls and your lightswitch has taken to the sound of his gunshot. On a Sunday night you even think you're clear of head. You say to your mother, _isn't it beautiful outside? The sun is so bright._

She stares at you. You tilt your head, wavering in the doorway. _You don't think so?_

"It's nighttime", she answers.

You ask Sojiro the same thing three days after that, and he doesn't reply. This man across from you- his fingers shake as he pours your drink. His nervousness is more comforted than it is unsettled.

What else could you say to him?

Quietly, he informs you it is almost six thirty at night and that he is not nervous, he just hasn't had a cigarette in four hours. He tilts his head at you, and Leblanc seems quieter.

"Refill?"

You try to remember drinking the coffee but behind pressed lips you nod anyway. "Yes, please."

Your cup is refilled.

"Your friends are upset", Sojiro says halfway through your third sip. "You've done an asshole thing. They think you're stuck back home and can't visit for the holidays- here I thought you were going to surprise them, but look at you."

"I was going to", you bite out. "I tried."

"You tried", he repeats, throwing his cloth down onto the counter, "but you haven't even started." He glances at his watch and sighs minutely. "Finish that in the next half hour, Futaba gets back after seven with the others and as much as I think you're an idiot right now, I respect your decision. You're too young to be mourning, the least I can do is get you the space you need to do it in peace."

The inside of your mouth feels scratchy and unnatural, but you force yourself to reply.

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet", Sojiro's eyes cut to you sharply in a way you can only relate to your father. "Be sure to text me when you're done and I'll pick you up and take you back to the station, got it?"

You nod.

"Good. I'm gonna grab my keys-"

"I respect you", you rush (you stumble, you trip and your teeth hit the last step on the way down), "Your opinion means a lot to me and- and you took _care_ of me. You still do. I appreciate it more than you'll know so please know that."

Sometimes, Leblanc feels like a fixative spray to your soul.

"I know", Sojiro tells you. You feel so cold inside but that phrase earns you a small solace. An insignificant one.

You have nothing left except a sour taste in your mouth.

The cemetary is lighter than you expected. You've only been to one once, but you remember the feeling. It feels the same.

A quiet fog sets over the shrine and a blonde coloured dog sleeps peacefully at the steps. You clean your hands quickly- it's easy to get distracted here.

You pray with the sparse wisteria at your knees. The grave is small and unnoticeable among the tall rows of granite but you could spot it a mile away, surrounded by the white little stones.

"Terror made me cruel", he states. "Is that what you want me to say?"

You stare at his shoes; shiny and brand new like they hadn't seen a day of work. The shadow of his hands clasped sends a chill over your shoulders and you look back to the grave. You can't ever remember saying his name.

"... No."

"Then what?", his presence demands your attention. "God never did anything for either of us; his mercy was as shortlived as it was useful. Why are you here? Why are you praying? You're just digging yourself a bigger hole to sit and rot in."

"I didn't invite you to come here", you retaliate but he scoffs, somewhere between sympathetic and indignant.

"I could say the same to you."

You miss the sun, you realise. The breeze burns your unblinking eyes and you turn your head away, shakily holding out a hand above you. There will be a never ending appeal in waking up to the smell of coffee beans and a daylight headache (Mona yanking open the blinds with his tiny teeth). You miss it, and you don't think you're going to get it back- the feeling of struggling towards that reassured _purpose_.

He takes your hand in his gloved one and pulls you up to your feet smoothly. You don't let go.

"All is as if that world did cease to exist, now", he reminds you. "Its driving power is unseen and its past unheard. That does not mean you have to remember it."

"If I don't, I'll loose everything else", there is a crack in your heart you want to stomp over, "Everything that made me a person, I'll lose. I'll lose my compassion and empathy and just become a shell-"

"Like me."

"You never had the _chance_ ", you rip your hands up to your face, roughly rubbing at your skin. Your glasses fall halfway off your face and you grip your hair tightly. "Fuck, Akechi, you're gone and I can't even- I feel like I can't _breathe_. I don't know where to be and what to do... We could have been something, we could have been anything and that would have been enough, but now your blood is under my nails and it's not washing out. It won't ever wash out."

"Is that what you think?"

A sour look twists your features and you turn to him, he who is clad in that ugly suit he wears like a second skin. He who doesn't even own a pair of skinny jeans.

"Don't you?"

He looks at you for a long moment before staring down at his own grave: pensive.

"It is hard for me to believe that even after my choice, my fate wouldn't _not_ amount to this. Living, dying, the two are interchangeable. Some are meant to live. Some are born to die. My lack of guidance may have been what was simply needed in the world and perhaps I was meant to be a pawn in your life, to get you here. That is what I think. Does your idea of me think the same?"

The silence is telling. He smiles inwardly.

"Stupid. I answered my own question. Look at me, Akira."

The creak in your neck sounds like the sickening crack of your head against the table of the interrogation room. His fingers twitch and you want him to touch you again.

"If we had met earlier", he echoes, "Maybe let that stay as it was. An unanswered hope."

"Stay", your body pulls you forward, closer to him, "just for a little longer, please, I don't want to be alone. I can't be alone."

"No", he answers, glancing over your shoulder, "you're not alone."

Behind you, your friends watch from a distance- and yet they will always feel less than they were. This, you know for sure. Knowing that if you were to turn, your determination to live would diminish just as his image did, you force yourself to walk back to them (a crooked smile on your face, like you've been here before).

Nothing breathes in Tokyo the next morning. Dawn is transfixed, and only the light moves.


End file.
